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6 Tips To Create Your Own Fortune With "How To" eBooks
Infoproducts!
It's one of the biggest challenges to getting your
business started.
Finding products to sell online that you enjoy working
at and that attract an ongoing stream of "hungry"
buyers is THE most important success factor to doing
business - period!
For those of you that want to create their own infoproducts,
it's even more important since you will be investing time,
energy and your emotions into your products.
Thousands of subscribers to my "Online Marketing Success
Secrets Revealed"
(http://www.infoproductcreator.com/ezine1.html) Newsletter,
experts and aspiring infoproduct creators struggle with the
same 6 questions...
Do these questions keep you awake at night?
1. What do I like doing enough that I would spend a few
weeks developing a product, and years marketing and
supporting them?
2. How do I know if ENOUGH people will purchase my product
to achieve my goals?
3. Will people pay for my knowledge - even if I'm not an
expert?
4. How do I test for demand BEFORE I spend weeks or months
developing my products?
5. Do I have to write a 150-page book to make money?
6. What topics sell - it seems like only "Making Money"
type products are selling.
Listen - you are NOT the first to wonder about these
questions.
In fact, your success depends on getting PAST these doubts
- so let's take each one and work through them - OK?
1. DO I HAVE TO REALLY LOVE MY TOPIC?
Two answers to this question - you CAN develop a winning
product about a subject that you are not completely
passionate about.
Professional writers do it all the time.
Here's the catch.
A great deal of your success marketing infoproducts online
will depend on MORE than just selling 1 product. It will
depend on...
a) Your ability to market additional products - yours and
others.
b) Your ability to create great publicity campaigns,
partnerships, follow up sales campaigns, loyalty with your
readers
c) Your ability to support and ADD-VALUE to your
prospective and
existing customers
d) Your ability to gain MOMENTUM in your business by
tapping into your customer base and continuing to provide
them high-value, back-end products
Are you seeing it?
Yes, you can develop an article, book, booklet, eBook or
whatever infoproduct you favor about a topic you are less than
thrilled about - BUT...
You MUST be willing to live with that market for years to come!
For that reason alone, it's worth finding a market and
subject that both interests you AND has great potential.
Here's a real-world example.
Just over 1.5 years ago I developed my own eBook aimed at
empowering product developers with proven ways to tap into
a flood of market demand, test their ideas and quickly
generate products that sell like wildfire.
The original ebook - "The Ultimate Information
Entrepreneur's Success Package" at:
http://www.infoproductcreator.com
took me 4 weeks to develop - start to finish.
Not bad.
It's because I knew my topic so well that I was able to
produce a 110 page eBook and accompanying interviews within
weeks.
Since that time I have written well over 60 articles,
published a regular ezine, updated my product 3 times,
written several special reports, created hard-hitting
websites, press releases, ads and added hundreds of pages
of content to my websites.
All of that is not including more than 40 interviews, reviews,
publicity events and other projects I've been involved in -
ALL ON THE SAME TOPIC.
Add to that hundreds of hours of email and phone conversations
with joint venture and affiliate partners who sell my product
for me each and every week.
Now - all of this activity has put tens of thousands into my
hands, from this one single book, not to mention other products
I sell.
POINT IS: Marketing The Product YOu Create Will Mean Living With
Your Product Each and Every Day As You BUild Your Business. You
Can Make A Fortune, But It Takes Some Effort Each and Every Day.
You MUST Be Passionate Enough About Your Topic To Stay Motivated
and Focused - That's the Secret To Building Your Own Infoproduct
Empire Online.
2. HOW DO YOU ESTIMATE DEMAND FOR YOUR INFOPRODUCT IDEA
Now we're into the details that will skyrocket you into
the top 5% of infoproduct developers online - that will set you
aside from 95% of others who do NOT consider demand for their
topic.
Just for sake of argument - I'm going to use an example of a
hobby that some of you may have, model airplanes. You know,
those little scale airplanes that get so many hobbyists out
of bed at ungodly times of the morning - addicting to the smell
of Naptha gas.
Here's a few ways you can can estimate demand for your
proposed market...
a) Use online tools to seek out demand. The three best
tools (and they are completely free) to use are:
- Overture keyword search tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
A search for model airplanes brings up some interesting
information -
- Over 55,000 searches on this topic in less than 1-month
(Not Bad!)
- Second most searched topic RELATED to model airplanes is
Model Airplane News - OK, so people want information.
- Several search categories include searches done on various
products, evidence that this market is willing to spend
money.
b) Now if you had a tool such as Adword Analyzer --
http://www.infoproductcreator.com/part/adwanalyze
Then you would see that the supply of websites that come up
when searching for model airplanes is quite small - relative
to other keyword searches.
In addition, with this incredible tool, you would see that
there are very few current Google Adwords or Overture.com
campaigns being purchased. What's that mean?
It means that you can use one or both of these tools to generate
almost INSTANT high-quality traffic to your site for a fraction
of what most other high-demand keywords would cost.
All good signs that point to a strong market demand for your
hobby and area of product interest.
c)A third method you can use is to seek out what is already
selling. A great way to do that is to look at
http://www.amazon.com and http://www.zdnet.com top
movers op sellers in various market niches.
This will tell you ALLOT about what people are spending money
on right now!
3. WHAT WILL PEOPLE PAY ME FOR?
Now that you have picked a niche market and an area of focus, you
need to find out what people want BADLY within that niche.
Here are a few ways to find out...
a) Search google for "model airplane discussion forums". You are
looking for active and reasonably good quality forums to TAP INTO
ongoig discussions - this will offer you a goldmine of information
on what people are looking for.
In a 5-minute search, here's what I found --
http://www.indiarc.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi
http://www.rcorlando.com/modules.php?name=Forums
http://www.flightlines.com/cgi-
bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true
You will find TONS of active discussions that will lead to product
ideas, allowing you to tap into what this market wants.
b) Get involved in Chat's - many of the sites above also run live
chat sessions periodically, another great way to find out pockets
of demand
c) Check offline - read RC Modeller magazines and books, find out
consistent topics, gaps in information or ideas that you could
expand into a different medium.
For example, a common topic is flying techniques or flight patterns.
Why not travel to your local model flying club and video tape
both flight paths and techniques used by flyers, converting them
into digital files and selling them on CD-ROM?
You get the idea.
d) Listen to your fellow model airplane buffs - find out what their
frustrations are, what their spending patterns are and what else
they are looking for, but can't find.
4. TESTING FOR DEMAND
Here are 3 quick methods of testing for demand - BEFORE you spend
days, weeks or months on creating your infoproduct.
a) Surveys - using a free trial from http://www.surveymonkey.com
you can find out whether your target market seems as passionate
about your idea as you are. NOTE: Be sure to ask them IF and
HOW MUCH they would be willing to cough up to get answers to
their questions.
b) Special Report - Use this often overlooked technique to put
together a few pages (from 5-20 pages) that you can either give
away or sell for a low price to test the popularity of your
idea. You WILL need to market this report, so it will take
some time BUT, it's a great way to setup your marketing channels
ahead of time, preparing them for your full product which comes
later.
The best resource I've come across on writing Income-Generating
Special Reports is "The Special Report Bible" - you will be
amazed at what you can put together in a matter of hours or
days.
ANOTHER IDEA is to run an interview or teleseminar on your
topic with a topic expert. Judge the popularity of the call
can mean you will roll out new products later.
An example of this strategy is Yanik Silver's recent Public
Domain Riches teleseminar
(http://www.infoproductcreator.com/part/pdomain) which turned
out to be such a hit that he quickly put together a $1,000+
personal coaching course on the same topic.
c) Articles - Write articles on your topic directly addressing
the same desire you hope to fill with your full product. Submit
your article to the various article directories on Yahoo and
many others out there. Request a courtesy notification from
publishers who publish your article so that you get a feel for
how popular the article proves to be. Of course, you should
also have a link to either a website or autoresponder email
address at the end of your article. Clicks on your link
following the article will also give you a sense of how popular
the topic is.
What should you expect?
You don't need to have HUGE numbers, a few publications and approx
a 1% clickthrough on any published articles tells you there is
enough response to continue - or at least do additional testing.
5. eBOOKS AND WHAT ELSE?
If you haven't asked the question - WHAT ELSE and you are
considering writing a typical book or eBook then you may be
missing out on product opportunities that will both make
you more money AND take far less time to create.
Here are just a few formats that many successful infoproduct
developers use today...
- Audio files (telseminars, interviews, commentary)
- Special Reports (5-20 page treatments)
- Videos (It's easier than you think)
- Software (Software applications or scripts can be developed
by starving professionals on Elance.com or Scriptlance.com
for far less than you might imagine.
- Physical booklets or courses/binders
- Bundled products
6. THE INTERNET MARKETING MARKET FALLACY
It has to be the biggest un-truth floating around the internet.
Contrary to what most people say, developing products targeted
only at the internet marketing crowd is NOT the only OR the
most lucrative market out there.
It IS the most competitive - so that's why you tend to see
products everywhere, leading most people to believe those are
the only products selling.
In fact, there are products selling in many niches including...
- health and wellness
- hobbies (models, crafts, collectors, music, sports, etc...)
- relationships
- parenting
- career and business
- business opportunities (ie. home business)
- technology
- pets
- and many, many others
Each week I continue to be AMAZED at the incredible opportunities
out there in niche markets - our society is more information
hungry than ever.
Don't make the common mistake of ignoring a market you are
interested in because you don't THINK products will sell.
Instead, test and find out what products will sell
to a given market.
With those obstacles out of your way - NOTHING stands in the way
of you creating that lifestyle you've always wanted by creating
and marketing information products.
About the Author
Jeff Smith is the author of the top-selling "Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package" helping thousands package their knowledge into profitable eBooks, special reports, ezines and audios. Visit his site here:
http://www.highertrustmarketing.com